Loveday Writing

This year, I thought about participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) again, only to discover when I tried to login to their website that it’s no more.

Admittedly, I’d been living under a NaNoWriMo rock as it’s only once a year and my participation in it was on-and-off. I read online that the organisation announced its closure in March due to apparent financial struggles and ‘community vitriol’ (from what I can tell based on recent controversy involving its stance and statement on the use of AI when writing).

A part of me was a little sad due to constantly hearing about it when I was uni studying creative writing and journalism, although I didn’t participate in it for the first time until 2016, almost a full two years after graduating. This was the only year in which I tried to write a novel, but ended up writing a novelette, How We Got Here, of 15,729 words and 74 pages. You can read all about it here.

I participated in NaNoWriMo five more times in 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023, with different writing goals each time. In 2017, I decided to write micro fiction as that is one of my strong suits, and in the other years, generally speaking, my goal each time was to write as much as possible and log my progress.

There were some years I didn’t participate – 2019, 2020, and 2024 due to my inability to fully commit in previous years, and in 2024, I went on an overseas holiday and wouldn’t have time for it. Before discovering NaNoWriMo’s closure, I had the intention of participating, although admittedly, sometimes it did feel like a bit of a chore, and a bit of self-inflicted pressure was lifted off my shoulders.

There are many alternatives to NaNoWriMo out in the world, which you can find a list of below.

As for me personally, I think similar yet different writing challenges I’ll take on in future will be National Haiku Writing Month, which is in February although has become an all-year long challenge, and National Poetry Writing Month in April.

You can read all about my past participation in NaNoWriMo here.